Subj:	 Magazine reports claim that ancient religious scroll kept secret by monks
Date:	9/27/99 8:20:11 AM Pacific Daylight Time
From:	hblonde1@tampabay.rr.com (New Millennium)

9/27/1999 10:54:00 ET

Magazine reports claim that ancient religious scroll kept secret by
monks
                   
JERUSALEM (AP) - A news magazine reported Monday it has been given
excerpts of a purported 2000-year-old religious text related to the Dead
Sea Scrolls that could shed new light on the origins of Christianity and
Jewish mysticism.  

The Jerusalem Report said it had no way of determining whether the text
was an elaborate hoax or one of the most important archaeological finds
of the century.  

The author of the "Angel Scroll," describes being taken by an angel
named Pnimea on a tour of heavenly gates, learning how to predict the
future and being taken back in time to the creation of the universe.  

The 6-foot-long document has been locked away at a Benedictine monastery
on the German-Austrian border, according to three Israelis who told the
magazine they had obtained a transcript.  

Benedictine monks bought the scroll from an antiquities dealer in the
Jordanian capital of Amman in the 1970s, The Report said, citing the
three Israelis.  

The monks were sworn to secrecy, then assembled the fragments,
photographed the scroll and deciphered it. One of the monks, Gustave
Mateus, leaked the contents before his death in 1996, The  Report was
told.  

Father Bargil Pixner, the Benedictine authority on the Dead Sea Scrolls,
called the report "a lot of nonsense" and "sensationalism." He told The
Associated Press that if the Benedictines were in possession of another
scroll, "I would know about it."  
Pixner also said Mateus was alive and well in Germany.  

Still, Stephen Pfann, a leading Dead Sea Scrolls scholar who has gone
over about a quarter of the text, said the language used is similar to
that of the scrolls. If it is a forgery, said Pfann, "it's a very good
one."